1. A few weeks ago when Will was out of town on a business trip, I decided to be ultra productive and take on a landscaping project all on my lonesome. We had a corner next to our garage that needed MAJOR work, so I pulled some weeds, filled in the open spots with river rocks and added some stone edging. It took me pretty much all day and several trips to Home Depot, but I’m really proud of how it came out!

Yard work is not for the weary, my friends.

Before:

After:

Woohoo! One yard project down, many many more to go!

2. The last time we were in Miami, my mom gave me a bag of chocolate Shakeology to take back with us because she didn’t care for the flavor. We all KNOW I would never spend upwards of $100 on a bag of shake mix, but now I’m worried that I might because it seriously is delicious! It’s also SUPER nutritious. I eat pretty healthy, but I notice a definite decrease in cravings when I have a shake for breakfast or lunch.

As I’m sure many of you do ( 🙂 ), I have a lot of friends who are part of the Beachbody team that promote the shake on social media. To be honest, I really didn’t expect it to measure up to the hype.

I will be seriously depressed when my bag is gone 🙁

3. Speaking of eating healthy, there’s been a handful of recipes we’ve enjoyed these past few weeks!

For Will’s birthday, I made Dashing Dish’s smothered chicken with smashed potatoes & mixed veggies. This was DELICIOUS.

And the other night I made another Dashing Dish recipe—Hummus Baked Chicken with lots of roasted veggies. The recipes says to cook the veggies and chicken together, but I opted to cook them separately because I have a weird thing about the juice that comes out of chicken. This recipe was also pretty good, but probably not something I’d make again.

We also made these (picture-less) crockpot carnitas which are the BOMB. (Is that word still cool?) This was the third time we’ve made ‘em and I can’t even think of trying any other carnitas recipe. It’s quickly become a staple!

4. This. I so need this DAILY.

5. Is anyone else into crime podcasts? I listened to Serial a couple months ago (I know… WAY late to the game) and really enjoyed it. After that I listened to S-Town, which I didn’t like so much, but now I’m on the Up and Vanished train. It’s my favorite one yet– I listen to it while I’m driving, at the gym, or walking around the neighborhood and it’s really captivating. I just finished the most recent episode and can’t wait for more!

6. We have officially begun another house project! Our outside patio was an eyesore when we first moved in– The roof had a slight leak and the floor was covered in carpet that was probably installed in the 1980’s.

Florida + outside carpet = no bueno.

Florida + outside carpet + leaky ceiling = nooooonoooo bueno.

My handy husband has ripped out all of the carpet and we’ve been getting estimates on how much it would cost to have a new patio installed. There may also be a chance that we will get a little wild and redo the patio ourselves 😀 We shall seeeeee!

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

Any fun plans this weekend? Any good recipes I should try? Any podcasts I should listen to?

Once upon a time in a land far far away, Will and I bought an affordable dark espresso bookcase from IKEA. It served us well for many many years, until I was bit by the “white, bright & airy” bug and wanted to make all of our office furniture white… #wifeonpinterestproblems

I researched my little heart out before taking on this project. I had heard horror stories about paint jobs going south and did not want to shell out money for primer, paint and finish all to have to buy a new piece of furniture in the long run. There seems to be some controversy in the land of Painting-Cheap-Furniture on the topic of sanding—to sand or not to sand? I decided against it and used a quality primer instead.

Step 1 – Disassemble & clean your furniture: We removed the shelves from the bookcase (except one that seemed to be stuck 😉 ) and cleaned cleaned cleaned! I used an aerosol dust canister to spray off dust, then wiped it down with Lysol. I’m sure there’s a more professional way to do this, but I felt that this method worked fine.

Step 2 – Prime: This is probably the most important step. Don’t be a cheapy and settle for a poor quality primer. We used Bulls Eye Zinsser 1-2-3 Primer which was only $10.00 and boasted about us not having to sand. I did two coats of this on all of the shelves and the base of the bookcase.

This primer dries to the touch in an hour, but takes 7 days to fully cure. In order to increase my odds of this project turning out well, I waited the full 7 days before touching it with paint.

Step 3 – Paint: I swap back and forth between Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams, but this time decided to use Extra White latex paint from the Duration Home Sherwin Williams line. I got it on sale because the folks at my local SW store alwaysssss hook me up 🙂

I did two coats of this, and here is where things REALLY started looking up!

Step 4 – Seal: Do NOT skip this step. I let the paint dry overnight, then sealed it with Minwax Polycrylic finish in clear satin. I did three coats of this, with a two-hour drying time for each coat. The instructions say that you can sand in between each coat, but I was too nervous to mess with a good thing so I skipped sanding altogether.

Step 5 – Assemble: One word of advice for those painting an IKEA bookcase (or any furniture with drawers/ other miscellaneous pieces), be VERY careful when putting it back together. The base is much thicker than it was in the beginning because of the multiple layers of primer, paint & finish. Take deeeeep breaths and take your time!

Then… step back and marvel at your masterpiece!

I was in serious awe of how well this project worked out. It looks like a brand new bookcase!

Be ready to practice your patience, but overall it really wasn’t that difficult (or expensive) to bring an old cheap piece of furniture back to life!

A couple weeks ago when Will & I were in Miami visiting family, we participated in my brother (Brandon) & sister-in-law’s (Katie) gender reveal for their first baby! It was perfect timing, because Katie was JUST able to have the gender read at the doctor’s office—so they wrote it on an envelope which she slipped to her friend Christina. Christina was then responsible for going to Party City to fill up a giant blackout balloon with the appropriate color of confetti.

I was SO convinced that it was a boy, as was my mom and most of the rest of my family. Will was convinced it was a girl, and he has some strange talent for ALWAYS guessing gender reveals correctly (he is 3 for 3!) I should have known to side with him…. 😉

It’s a girl!!!!!!!

Will’s sister also gave us our first niece (Olivia) earlier this year in May, and now we have another little niece due in October! It must be the year of the girls 😉 We are THRILLED! Bring on the bows!

I love my family and I’m SO glad that Will and I were able to be there for this special day!

1. Things have been pretty darn busy these last couple of weeks– Will & I were spending most of our nights & weekends preparing for & planning a HUGE garage sale fundraiser for our adoption, which just took place this past weekend!

You guys.. the Lord SO had his hand over this event! Three weeks before our garage sale, Will and I looked at each other and said “What the heck are we going to sell!?” Little by little, it all started to come together as friends and strangers donated all types of items to us—from bedroom sets, to baby clothes, to pots and pans. We had so many different things! The night before the sale we had a garage FULL of items, 90% of which weren’t even ours!

On the day of the sale, we were also blown away by how many of our friends came out to help. My goodness… It was just one of those moments when you wonder how you managed to deserve to know so many fantastic people.

Our yard and driveway were FULL of stuff!

By the end of the day we ended up making just over $1,000! Praise God! We were blown away!

We really had no idea what to expect because we don’t live on a street that gets a lot of traffic, but it was amazing how people just kept showing up one after another. Popcorn also had a blast greeting all of our guests and we had several people ask how much he cost!

I said a million dollars 🙂

<3

2. I spray painted this small oval mirror in our living room, and it made a WORLD of a difference. Before the mirror was a 70’s style gold-ish bronze. It really made the room look outdated, but I didn’t want to spend money on a replacement. I ended up settling on some $2.00 dark brown spray paint at Home Depot and called it a day.

Once the paint dried, I sanded the edges a bit to bring some of the gold coloring back through and am SO happy with how it came out. Without the sanding it still looked nice, but a little too much like it was dipped in chocolate 🙂

Now I think it looks great, if I do say so myself!

3. This sign that Kelley posted on Instagram. So encouraging & such truth!

and a chicken + lime soup that I loosely based off of this recipe (minus the avocado because we didn’t have any 🙁 ) I’d never guess that chicken & lime would go well in soup together but hey, it strangely works!

5. This weekend we also went out to celebrate Will’s dad’s birthday at Kobe, his FAVORITE restaurant. It’s basically an unspoken tradition, if you didn’t notice already 🙂

Because Will’s birthday is at the end of May and his dad’s is in the beginning, we typically end up celebrating both birthdays while we are there. Gotta love them samurai hats 😉

6. My new job is going oh SO well! It’s been a huge blessing to transition out of a stressful environment into one full of flexibility, kindness and teamwork. I’ve almost been working there for three months now, and have already felt a world of difference. Will says that I left my last job just as much for him as I did for myself because of the stress that I brought home. Haha! No bueno!

Last week my new job surprised me with a delivery of flowers, just to say “thank you”. It’s all in the little things 🙂

And with that, I am done and ready for the weekend! Tonight Will & I are heading to a marriage Q&A at our church and are super excited! Tomorrow I’ll be photographing at a local mom’s event, and on Sunday morning we serve in the kids ministry. Sounds like a packed (but super fun!) weekend to me 😀

Hi there, I’m Brittany!

I live in Central Florida and have a strong passion for good health, positive living, fitness, photography and the Lord. My husband Will and I are also waiting to bring home our first babe through the sweet gift of adoption. We can't wait! Here you will find delicious recipes, stories, and lots of pictures of our firstborn chihuahua, Popcorn. Feel free to poke around and say hi :)